Create your dream life with the kikki.k founder, Kristina Karlsson

Transcript

* Transcript created by AI – may contain errors or omissions from original podcast audio

CLARE: On today’s episode of the Clare Wood podcast, I am delighted to be interviewing Kristina Karlson, the founder of Kikki.K. In today’s episode of the podcast, we chat about how she originally started Kikki.K, the growth and the fall of Kikki.K, And what Kristina is doing now to help people create their dream lives. I thoroughly enjoyed this chat and I’m sure you will too.

Welcome to the Clare Wood podcast, Kristina. It’s fantastic to have you here.

KRISTINA: I am so excited to be here. Thank you for having me.

CLARE: Well, it’s a pleasure. Look, Kristina and I met, we both spoke at the Pop Your Biz event, and Kristina, I believe you actually sponsored the whole event as well a couple of months ago. And when we met, I thought I have to have you come on my podcast and share a little bit about your story because you’re such a fantastic speaker. And yeah, there were even a few tears shed by me when you were talking. So thanks for coming along.

For anyone who doesn’t know you, do you mind sharing a little bit about, about your backstory?

KRISTINA: Yeah, I grew up in Sweden and I came to Australia as a 22 year old and I met my partner in a ski resort and I thought I’ll just come here for a bit. And then I loved it, loved it here, so decided to stay. But during that time, I was quite lost and I had no idea what to do with my life. So I was whinging and complaining a lot and I didn’t know what was, what was I going to do with my life? And at 3am one morning, I woke up my partner, I think for the fifth time asking him what am I going to do with my life? So he was a bit over that complaining all the time. So he said, why don’t we, he turned on the light and he said, why don’t we Write down what is important to you. So I wrote down some dreams on paper and one of them was to have my own business and I didn’t know anything about starting a business, I didn’t know what that was going to be in. And I also wanted to drive to work every day and loving it. That was really important to me, more important than anything. Cause I, we spent so much time at work and I wanted to love it. And I also want to have a connection with my, my family in Sweden. So I want to be able to, to call that home as well and live in both worlds. And that felt impossible at the time. And then I wanted to work with Swedish Design and I wanted to make $500 a week, that was my goal. Well, for me at the time, I didn’t make that at the time this was a long time ago. And also I I wanted just to I wanted to have enough money to pay rent and eat some good food and go to Sweden. And that was kind of all I wanted at the time. And based on that, I looked at my list and I thought, if I’m going to have my own business one day, I have to have a beautiful office. And I just could not find anything back then. There’s so much more available now, but it was just really a boring business. price driven category stationary market. So Kikki.K was born out of kind of not finding anything that I wanted to put in my own home office. And then of course that evolved to to so much more than products for your home office.

As I evolved as a person, I’m very much into personal growth, working on our, on ourselves is the most important thing to be able to create the life of our dreams. So it’s, it has, that evolved and then it’s a long, very long story. I’m happy to go into that specifically, but perhaps not in the, in the introduction I lost Kikki.K in COVID. It wasn’t just COVID, it was a few, few things happening at once and it was the perfect storm, so sadly I lost it. And that was a journey on its own because KikiK for me was more than a business, was a family and it was very much, it was my nickname and it was very much part of me, my identity. So that took a couple of years to unravel and work out what I was going to do. And now I have to say that I am on a journey that is even better. I have created a new business called dream life. And my big dream is to inspire 101 million people to write down three dreams and go and chase them. I do a lot of speaking and I always have, you know, a handful of people or 10 people coming up after wanting to to take on their own journey, creating their dream life. And I always felt like I wanted to help them, but as you know, as a speaker, you only have a few minutes after until you need to hit the airport or go to the next thing. So I then wrote a book, Your Dream Life Starts Here, which we sold over 100, 000 copies over the last few years, which always blows my mind when I say that out loud because, you know, I never, I, I never knew that that was possible.

And then I started a podcast and now I have a coaching program helping people create their dream life. And I’m also an avid reader. So I have a book club for people who love personal development books. I know that’s not for everyone. My friends is like, who joins that? And I’m like, I do. So we read a book a month. So that’s kind of my new, my new venture. And I love that even more. And I think I wanted to share that because, because When you go through a dramatic event, or I know you had your own dramatic event with, with your health, it’s, it’s really hard when you go through it, but there are, there are always a lot of silver liners, and I’m sure you, you have seen that as well.

CLARE: I just got goosebumps then. It’s so true, isn’t it? Sometimes like our biggest growth actually happens during our biggest challenges and you were living testament to that. I can’t wait to dive into this a bit more, but I want to backtrack a little bit because you kind of glossed over like, yeah, I just started this, you know, massive global empire.

Let’s go right back to the beginning. When you say that you were designing, were you, so you were actually designing. All of your designs yourself in the initial stage, were you intending to commercialize it from the outset or were you literally just making one for yourself and then getting it printed? How did that sort of start?

KRISTINA: My dream was to have my own business. I, and I’m a vision person. I’m not a good detail person. I’m a good dreamer. I dream big. So I had a clear vision actually from day one. When I said clear, I had an idea. And of course, That wasn’t clear for everyone, including myself until I started to work on it. But I when I went out to buy some products, it wasn’t depressing. That’s not the right word, but it was, it was really, I was just like, it’s so boring. And I didn’t even think about that, this could be my potential. But then I was just like, and I was looking, you know, I was, I grew up in Sweden, there was quite a lot of beautiful products in Sweden. So I was like, can I import, can I, I looked at lots of different things. And you know, when you hear people talk on a podcast for one hour or so, you can’t give everyone a detail, but nothing ever happens overnight as we, as I think we all know, but it’s easy to, to look at someone who’s successful or, or ahead of you to thinking that they worked it out so, so easily. And that wasn’t the case. It took me quite a while to work out what I was going to do. But then when I realized I can actually do this myself, my own brand, I got really excited thinking that’s actually such a freedom in its own right, because you can just then create whatever you want.

And because I was focusing on my own home office that was very fitting to start. For me, it wasn’t actually so much design in terms of graphic design to start with. I actually started with storage boxes and folders and notebooks with Swedish simplicity and good quality and work with manufacturers. So I was very much part of that. But I have never been a graphic designer or illustrator. So one of my dear friends, she sadly passed away from cancer a few years ago, but she was a beautiful children’s book illustrator. So I asked her to do my first cards, were just absolutely beautiful and very much in line with what I wanted that look and that kind of Swedish feel to be like. And then I I actually started with kind of, I didn’t call it a party plan, but it was like a party plan. So basically I asked my friends. Will you pay whatever $20, whatever that was at the time. And everyone said, yes. And I thought this is a bit too good to be true. So I then thought if everyone would buy for me, it’s a different story because it’s one thing to say, you’re going to buy something and it’s another thing to actually give me the cash. So I asked people, my friends, to invite 10 friends. And I set it up as a little Kikki.K showroom. I color coordinated everything and I had a lamp. Took me about two, two hours to set it up myself. I remember it very vividly because I think I did about 40 of these and it was 40 degrees in Melbourne at some of those days and it was really hot and I had a tiny car and my box, last box was always on my lap. People said, you can’t drive like that. I said, yes, I can. And so that’s kind of how it started. And then, and then that gave me confidence. And I wanted to share this because sometimes you just need to start with something, even if you have a really big vision that I did, I needed to start to work out, is this going to work?

And of course it’s so much easier in today’s world compared to what it was when I started because. You know, internet was just starting then and you couldn’t reach a global audience as you can today very quickly. So I got that confidence and then I started to wholesale and then I convinced my partner to sell his house to open the first retail. For me, retail was really, and I had no experience in retail, but retail for me was really important because I saw the way gift shops, and there’s very few of those around in today because it’s really hard for them to survive because the margin is too low. And the rents are too high when you import or you buy from, from other products. So, it’s a model that’s really hard to make it work. But when I saw those people do that, I felt like they, they didn’t put it the way I wanted to merchandise it. And because I’m a visual person, I then thought I need to have a retail.

So Paul sold his house in 2001. It was this challenging time. And, and it’s another point I wanna say here. I never heard anyone say retail is good. Like everyone says it’s so hard and it’s good to know that because a lot of people who are struggling will always feel that way, but you just have to, to work out. And I think it’s good to start, like we have, you know, we, the financial situation right now is challenging for sure. And it’s good if you can make a business work in those challenging times, because then when it gets easier and that will happen eventually it’s you are on the, on the path to them. To make it work.

CLARE: I love that. I actually, before I came into my own business, I used to work for Sheridan, the sheets and towels company. So I’ve got a retail background that know all about the, the challenges and particularly like the big prime real estate centers, the rent is exorbitant. So crazy.

There’s something that you said that I want to dive into a little bit here, which I think is really important, your partner sold his house. Can we just take a moment and recognise how huge that is? Cause you’re kind of just glossed over it. That is a massive, massive thing. How absolutely terrifying was that at the time, or was this just he was like, yep, we’re all in. I’m, I’m right behind you. Was it a, something that you spent a lot of time grappling over?

KRISTINA: Yeah, absolutely. All the stories that I say, you say it really quickly because you can’t, otherwise you just can’t get to, to any questions through a podcast. So that’s why I said it in a brushed way. But obviously it’s not a decision that anyone should take lightly and it wasn’t even like we kind of just met so it wasn’t my house. It’s very, very different if you, if you have a combined house, but because I came from Sweden and, and he had this house and, and a lot of his friends thought he was mad. And we, we spent a lot of time doing the business plan, working out how it could be. We knew that the products were Accepted and liked, and we got a lot of PR. I went to see all the magazines and I got so much PR and, and back then, female entrepreneurs wasn’t as common as they are today. So I got a lot of a lot of attention in terms of not just the products, but the business side as well. So I started to speak really early about my journey.

When 9/11 happened I don’t know if you remember that, but that was a horrific day for all of us and especially for those affected more closely by it. But for us, it was like, Oh gosh, what is going to happen in the world now? And we were opening next to a big tower in Melbourne central in the shopping center, Melbourne central. I was scared and I was like, Oh, I don’t even know if I want to be close to a building that can be blown up like they did. So it was, it was definitely not something we did lightly. We tested in many ways, many ways. We had a lot of mentors around us to give us advice, but at the end of the day, When you get come to the decision, we needed to be sure that this was the right thing to do. Paul actually joined the business then he, he worked for another business before that. So that was really good because he knows so much more about business than I did at the time. And probably still do. And and we just had different strengths. So we worked really well together.

So eventually in the beginning, we took kind of took turns on, on running the business, depending on what we were focusing on. And then eventually he became the CEO until 2016. And then we had a professional CEO that didn’t work out. We tried a couple, didn’t work out. And it wasn’t an easy decision, but it was, it was right. And something that we took a long time to, to make a decision, we also, it wasn’t a massive house and it wasn’t something we, we believe we both believe that if that, if it didn’t go to time, we can make that again.

CLARE: Isn’t that so beautiful? And it’s something, you know, people ask me this a bit because I’m very blessed as well, I’ve got an incredibly supportive husband and a lot of people say to me, well, what do you do if you don’t have a partner who is either supporting you or coming all in? What advice would you give to people who maybe are in that boat and their partner’s really not behind them on their, their dreams and their business journey?

KRISTINA: Yeah, it’s such an individual question for each couple to, to go on that journey. But I, I believe that you, you need to create your dream life. Each person has to. So if your partner is not wanting to be there, I don’t think that’s the right thing. It’s one thing to be supportive it’s another thing to be involved. So I actually think that it’s better not to have a business with your partner. We work extremely well together, but a lot of people probably wouldn’t do that. And and I also think that it becomes very much a working household. So we are a, an entrepreneurial family. Both of our kids, they now 12 and 15, both have their own businesses and and it’s very, it’s very much like you know, a business family. So, so that, that works for us, but that wouldn’t work for everyone.

So I believe if you don’t have a supportive partner, encourage your partner to live their dreams, whatever that is for them. I do exercises all the time with my family. What are their dreams and what are my dreams and we share it and then we support each other. You don’t have to have the same dreams to be able to support each other. And I think if you have a business and you want to do something, I think you should do that and then share the excitement of that and then encourage your partner and your kids to do the same. And then if everyone is doing what they love doing it’s much easier to be supportive because I think often what happens is that one person goes a hundred miles an hour in one direction and the other person doesn’t really feel either included or understands it. And I think it’s just a conversation to have. This is my dream, what is yours? And we’ll help each other and make that happen.

CLARE: Yeah. I think it would be much easier because my husband runs his own business too. I think it would be so much easier to have someone with just a normal job and a consistent income. But it’s, to your point, it’s about that support. Your partner should want you to be happy and live your dream life and I love that you have had that experience along, along the journey.

So that’s where Kikki.K kind of got started. And you sort of mentioned that it all came to a big head and you ended up losing control. So Kikki.K is still running now. Do you mind just sharing with the listeners exactly what happened, how that played out and who’s running kikki.K now?

KRISTINA: So I’m going to give you the main points. So since we started Kikki.K, we had lots of investors along the way. People who invested us in the early days and people we bought back and like, it’s been a journey. We had lots of different ways of financing. Retail is an expensive model and cashflow is tough, especially if you see some business like we were very much you know, in, in one quarter made most of our money. So cashflow was always really tough.

So we had lots of different investors over the years. And in 2016, we took a big private equity into go global where we were already in in four countries, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, and Hong Kong. And I always felt there was such an opportunity in US and UK. And the reason why I wanted to go global is I felt like we did so many beautiful things and not just design wise, but actually the thought behind the products, a lot of people came in to us to to get a journal for if they, you know, suffering depression or if they just got diagnosed with cancer or any, any, you know, hard sickness or had an accident or something happening to them. If they separated or got divorced or lost someone, you know, relationship wise, or perhaps death, we were a business that people came in and, and kind of had someone to talk to, which was so beautiful. And secondly, got a journal to, to be able to help them through that journey . And I’m very much very happy to share some tips on that later on, because I think journaling really kept me sane. I never burnt out. I never struggled with that because journaling… but we can talk about that later.

So 2016, we took a big amount of money in and we then signed… when I say we, it’s me and Paul we signed a Shareholders agreement where we lost control over the business, but we were really happy. I’m going to talk for myself here, I was really happy, just because it makes it easier. And I was really happy to let go of control because I’m not good at running a big global business, and it’s not my strength. It’s not what I want to do. I’m a product person and the content behind it and that’s what I wanted to focus on. So I was really happy with that. And I couldn’t never have imagined that we would end up where we ended up with, but of course, that is always a risk when you have your own business. So that’s a reality for all of us.

And then there was a few things happening all during these up leading up to COVID. So we had Brexit in the UK. So we opened stores in the UK in London and outside of London and Brexit certainly didn’t help. There was all those issues in Hong Kong that didn’t help in retail. We had bushfires in Australia, plus we were in retail, which is You know, not an easy business to be in. And if you get one or two stores wrong, or if you didn’t have a good season, then that really affected. So there was a few things happening all at once, or it was kind of a perfect storm. But the private equity and then the CEO didn’t work out. It was, there was a lot of things happening. And then someone knocked on our door. China’s biggest, definitely biggest, but also the best manufacturer of stationery wanted to buy us and the private equity wanted to get out. So this was something we worked on for two years. And I met with the the owner and the team, and I felt like it was done and we just needed to do all the paperwork. And that took a long time to do. And then I was in Germany just before COVID hit probably in February whatever that year was. I was in Germany and one of the employees of this business were going to buy us and when I say buy us, I was, me and Paul was still going to be shareholders, but smaller shareholders. And we were going to focus on… they were really kind of interested in opening loads of stores in China, and we were going to continue the global expansion. So it was, I felt like it was a really good combination. One of the employees said, I’m really worried about this virus. I was just like take some multivitamins and get on with it. They pulled out and and so that meant that the private equity didn’t want to fund us anymore. So they put us into administration and that was the hardest day of my life. I have to say because as an entrepreneur, you just like, that’s just not an alternative that I ever thought that I would take ever. And it was out of my control anyway. So there was nothing I could do, but it was just like, I just fought until the end. And I was just like trying to find a solution because for me, as I said earlier, it wasn’t just a business. It was a family. It was a lifestyle. It was just everything that I lived and breathe. It was, everything was around my business and so it was just awful. But saying that I knew, and this was also in a very challenging time because we were closed all the time. We had a lot of employees that are going through lots of different issues with what was happening with COVID.

So it was a really awful time, but I knew at the same time that we had a really good brand. Like every time I mentioned the business, everyone just always say how much I love it. So I knew that. And we also had a really great business in so many ways, just had a lot of things happening at once. And I knew we could turn that around. And so someone picked us up from US, which I was really excited about. We did a deal over zoom, never met them. And we were on our way again and joined forces with them because of the lockdowns, especially here in Victoria, it was it was really hard to run a retail store. I don’t know how many employees we had at the time, but at the top, we had about 120. And it’s really hard to run a business that is really relying on cashflow when you’re closed all the time. And and because they were from US, they lost faith in the government and they didn’t believe that we were going to open for Christmas. One year later, we couldn’t never continue the way it was because all of us will be out of business. It’s just, not possible to run a business that are closed all the time. So we knew that something will have to change. And of course that happened, but before they pulled out, the Americans, they put us into administration one more time. And that was even worse because that was so unexpected in terms of the way they communicate, just, it was just awful. And the administrator were the most awful people I have ever come across in my whole life. Luckily, I never had to meet them in person and I hope I never will. And it was such a shock because we are a human, we were a human first business and we had so many challenges over the year, but always managed to deal with all that in a nice way. And you know, it was such a shock. And then when that happened, I made a decision I want to be back in control. I’m an entrepreneur. I know if I have done this once, I can do it twice, I can do it again. I already started the dream life movement, I didn’t know what’s going to happen. And I have, you know kids in schools and, and you know, needed to make a living. So I I started my dream life coaching program. I started a book club and then I, you know, I had my book and my podcast and all the things that, that I was doing at the same time.

And now just expanding … the people who own Kikki.K now are probably not my favorite people. They sent me a legal letter trying to just say, how are we going to do this to kind of work alongside each other? That’s not the approach that I would have taken. But anyway it still exists. It’s very different to what it is when when we started it. Now I’ve got a couple of the team members with me and we are creating a new brand called dream life. And now it’s even more exciting because we print on demand. So we basically don’t sit with millions of dollars in inventory and you can personalise all the journals and, and it’s just an incredible model. And it’s taken us a little while to kind of get up, but it’s up now. It’s so exciting. I have a new policy to only work with people that I absolutely love working with. And it’s it’s really nice.

CLARE: That is so fantastic. I really believe if you want a happier life, do more of the things that make you happy and surround yourself with people that make you happy. So that’s really, I absolutely love that. So what’s your big, what’s the vision for dream? Like you call it the dream life movement.

What is your big vision? Because obviously this has the power to impact so many people’s life in a positive way. What’s your big vision for the business?

KRISTINA: Yeah. So I want to inspire 101 million people to write down three dreams and go chase them. That seems like an impossible number, and I’m not really focusing on the number. I just want to think really big.

So in today’s world, because we are currently only printing on this side of the world, but in 2024, we will have printers in the UK, Europe, and US, which means it’s more sustainable. So we don’t ship things. We’ll be printed in those countries. That’s just the product side and we do journals and diaries and all the things that I, I’ve always done. But I also wanted to help people because it’s one thing to to set a big dream. And if you haven’t done a big dream or a big goal, and I’m talking about people changing, you know, careers or, or completely want to, to change their life. It’s not an easy thing to do. And that’s why I have my coaching program to help those people who need some support. I launched it last year and I still haven’t seen one dream that is not possible, but a lot of people come in thinking that’s impossible for them. And that is because they’ve never done it before. But I believe that anything is possible. And I have this philosophy that if you just, you just need to start and you just need to have a clear vision and then start where you’re at and then move towards that. And that is really exciting.

For anyone listening, and this might be a bit morbid, but in a hundred years time, You’ll just be a name and and forgotten about. So now is your time to make the most of your one precious life that you’ve been given. And I’m going to do whatever I need to do to create my dream life. And in a dream life, it’s not an easy life. Like we, we still have COVID in dream life. We still have all the things that happens to us. And we just work through all that with the dream in mind that we, we just have to work that out and, and take those challenges. And as we said earlier, a lot of the silver linings are in that story.

Like when I saw you speak, you speak about your story and you now have another enthusiasm perhaps for your life because you know how it is not to have your health. And and I think I think it’s so exciting to work on your dream life. Not an easy thing to do, but it’s really exciting. And if we have to work, why not do something we love?

CLARE: I love this. So let, can you share with the listeners, what is something outside of business? What is something that you have created in your life that seemed impossible? And now you’re like, Oh my gosh it’s, it was a dream of mine and now it’s a reality.

KRISTINA: So I had the dream to be able to live in Sweden for three months of the year and actually have a home there. And when I started my business, I didn’t take out money for a long time. I took out what I needed, but not a big chunk for a house. I always wanted to have a home and, and in Sweden where I could feel like we were not just coming to visit. We, we were there to live. And I wanted my kids to have that experience feeling as much Swedish as they feel Australian. So I had that on my vision board. I had it on my big dreams to do, but I kind of never really knew how I was going to make that happen. And I remember always talking about it, but not really having a plan around it. And then I remember my dad said to me, if you’re really serious about getting a home here, you should do it before the kids grow up. This is when the kids were really little because once they grow up, you can, you can again, stay wherever it doesn’t really matter. And that really got me. So I then somehow made it happen to buy a home there. And that’s one of the things that I love the most. One of my biggest dreams achieved because to me, that is just, I just love it’s for me, it’s like coming home and and I love that.

And another thing which might be more relatable for, for anyone listening is that like I’ve always been into exercise, but I’ve never loved running. One of my girlfriend’s husband passed away before COVID and she was going to run the half marathon in Berlin. She lives in Sweden, so that’s why Europe is very accessible. All her girlfriends decided to, to run with her, not all of them, but a few of them. And then I thought, I want to join that, but because I was living in Australia, I wasn’t quite sure if I could make it happen with the timing. So I registered, but I didn’t tell anyone. And then I started to, to practice to run a half marathon. So for me, from not loving running and didn’t really feel like, I could run, well, when I said, if we physically can run, all of us can run, but I felt like it was more of a mental hurdle for me. That was one of the blessings of COVID for me that that was canceled. So I didn’t have to run the half marathon, but I then started to, to really enjoy my runs. And I did decide to do, my girlfriend did these hundred days of running last year. And I was like, That sounds crazy, but another, I love the challenge. So I did actually 200 days of running us when I got to a hundred, I couldn’t stop. And and so that is one thing that, that felt impossible at a time, but I now I still don’t love running is certainly not my thing in terms of it’s not something that comes naturally loving it for me, but I now with my community, whoever is in my dream life community and wants to start running. One of the girls who actually joined my community three years ago, she last weekend, she ran a half a marathon and she, she said that she couldn’t even run to the post box in her house. And she texted me the day before and I went to see her from thinking that she could not run to, she actually started running in her backyard because she was so embarrassed and now running half a marathon was so incredibly amazing.

CLARE: Oh, I love that. Yeah. I’m definitely in camp. I say all the time, I can’t run and physically I can run, but I just, it’s something in my head. And every time I try and get started, I’m like, I’m not meant for this. It’s so funny how powerful our mind is. And, you know, at this point it’s not something that I’m terribly motivated to do. It doesn’t really light me up, but yeah, to hear that you can come on that journey and create something from something that seemed impossible is just so, so inspiring.

KRISTINA: Yeah. And you know what? I can do anything because for me physically I can run absolutely, but mentally I love walking, that’s my thing. Like everywhere I am, like I just went up to, to Queensland where you are and I stayed extra time just to walk cause I just love it. So fitness wise I can walk and I can run. Absolutely. But mentally running is so boring for me. I don’t know what it is, but walking, I feel like I can take in everything and I can listen to lots of podcasts with running. I feel like I need to focus just to kind of get to the end. And that is one of the reasons why I do it because if I can conquer that, then through me any challenges and I can do, do anything.

CLARE: I did my first ice bath a couple of months ago and I didn’t even want to do it. I hate the cold. I was like, why is my friend convinced me to go and do this. And she’s like, look, you don’t have to do it. When you get there, you don’t have to do it. And we had this Wim Hof coach with us. And so we get in the ice and I was like, and your body physically goes into shock. I completely underestimate… I thought it might be a bit cold, but I was like, I couldn’t breathe. And it was the most, and I’m like, I want to get out. And he’s like, Just keep breathing. And he basically, I was like mesmerised looking in his eyes thinking, I can’t, I’ve just got to do this. This feeling when I hit the two minute mark and got out, I was like jumping around. I was like, I’m like, I can do anything. And I didn’t have a natural childbirth experience, both my births didn’t go to plan, but I can imagine it must be the same thing afterwards. Just a feeling of I can do anything.

KRISTINA: Yeah. Yeah.

CLARE: And when you have those little micro experiences, it does show you that, you know, once you, once you get through something like that, once you get through any traumatic, challenging event, you come out the other side and you’re like, I can do, yeah anything. It’s really empowering, isn’t it? Have you done ice bathing?

KRISTINA: I have. I don’t love it. I have a friend who’s like, I’m going to take you through it. So I don’t love it, but I haven’t really embraced it the way you did, that you did. So I, I think that’s, will be a thing for this year. And of course I love sauna and I’m also studying longevity. Not to become a longevity coach, but it’s for myself. I’m not going to coach in it. I’m just going to implement it all on my own in terms of following the longevity protocol that I’m studying and that alone will be a real challenge because it takes out a lot of the things that perhaps we enjoy in life, including sugar, alcohol, all those things that we love. I love doing that because if we have health and the energy and you’re the same with the ice bath that you… that high you get off to, it’s like the runner’s high or the ice bath high, or even do anything that’s challenging. You just feel so amazing after, and next year I, I am going to 10 X my business is my plan and for that, I need to be so focused and so disciplined. And I find it so much easier than to just follow my plan.

CLARE: Oh my gosh. I’m excited for you. Well, I can’t say I’m in a rush to do it again. I got out and I was like, I’m so proud, I’m so glad I did that. I would way prefer sauna, but yeah, I actually, interestingly enough, saw a video this morning about the power of sauna and how the impacts that it’s, it’s shown to have on people’s longevity.

KRISTINA: It’s just incredible. It’s unbelievable. And it’s actually also for anyone who are perhaps not fit enough to run yet sauna actually acts because you get your heart rate up. So it’s kind of almost like a cardio for your body. So it’s a good way of kind of getting your fitness if you’re not able to to run. It’s, yeah, it’s one of the key things for longevity. So it’s it’s good. And it’s combining that with with the ice bucket. But not for everyone’s, but it’s a good combination for most of us.

CLARE: Well, you have to keep me posted how you go.

KRISTINA: Yeah, I will.

CLARE: You’ll be doing them three times a week or something. So I, I’m really curious. We started chatting a little bit about this off air. What are your big dreams outside of business? What are your big dreams for the rest of your life?

KRISTINA: I want, I want to live to 120. And not just live until 120, but live well and healthy. So I’m really curious. So I just turned 50 this year and I’m really curious about how can I live a long healthy life and hopefully inspire a few people along the way to do the same. When I speak, I always look at the audience and I see way too many unhealthy people out there. And I just really want to inspire people by being an example, perhaps not coaching…. I might get to that when I’m older, but it’s not really what I want to focus on now. So health and living to 120 is my number one, because I know if I have my health in order and, you know, thriving more than in order I can do anything.

The other thing is financial freedom. So having Made a lot of money, and I also lost a lot of money. I know how important it is to have financial freedom, and it’s not about the money. I was never ever driven by money in my first business. I was driven to do what I love, and that remains the same today. But you need to have your basics financial needs in order. So so for me, financial freedom is not having hundreds of millions invested or in a bank or whatever people choose to put their money. For me, it’s about the freedom to do whatever I want, whenever I want, with whoever I want. And that’s really exciting because I now one of my focuses for 2024 is to to speak.

So I, I set myself an impossible dream or goal, however you want to name it, do 104 talks next year. That’s two a week and I’m excited. And it’s not impossible, but it’s impossible when you’re starting from not having anyone booked within a year. So we’ll see how I go. I’m not going to beat myself up if I or be unkind to myself if I don’t reach that, because it feels a little bit impossible with the timing. But if I reach half that, I’ll be really happy. I still have people thinking that I’m with my previous business and it’s a good way of sharing that, but also I feel like I’ve got so much to share now to to actually share not just how I built the business, but how I lost it all and all the tools that I used to actually overcome that, because that was a big challenge and not everyone needs to go through an administration to have a challenge. You had it yourself and, and a lot of people, you know, gets sick or, or something comes unexpected, unexpectedly or divorce or whatever, whatever it is for each person. The tools that I used is applicable for all that. So I want to share as much as I possibly can on that. And also for any small business owners or any, any size business To know that whatever happened to that business, you, you can survive it and even better than survive it thrive after, which I’m certainly doing now.

CLARE: Hmm. I love that. So on the, on the topic of financial freedom, you’ve mentioned maybe being able to have different home, like different bases, even within Australia.

KRISTINA: Yeah. What does that look like? My dream is actually to live in Sydney, but my family do not want to live in Sydney. So I decided to skip that dream in terms of living full time, but get an apartment there. So that’s one of my dreams, my vision board with a, with a Harborview, cause I just love Sydney. So I’m currently in Melbourne. I also want to have a home in Noosa because I love the national park there or somewhere warm up there, it would be, it would be fun. I love nature. I love traveling, but I also love having a home when I travels that where I can just be, I’m an introvert, so I like to have a bit of a space in between all the things that I do and and then obviously have it continue having my home in Sweden. So that’s an outcome of a financial freedom dream, but that’s not really the focus for now. Now it’s focused to be able to just travel and do whatever I love and wherever I want to do. Maybe two months ago, I was in Croatia for a girlfriend’s 50th and and every second day that wasn’t anything planned and I worked with this incredible view and everyone was like going out on boats and doing all the fun things. And I was working there like reporting and I was like, I could not think of anything better doing what I love work was and sitting here. It was just unbelievable. So I want to do more of that. So when I do my talks I want to always have a day after, a time for me after staying in a beautiful house or a hotel and spend some time working on me. Personal growth for me is really important to be able to do everything that I do. So working on myself every time I travel somewhere is really important and something I really love.

CLARE: Oh, I love that. I love that. Well, I’m so excited for you. I know that you sharing your vision is inspiring so many people. I’m getting off this feeling so inspired and I’m sure my listeners will as well.

So if people would like to find out more about your books, about working with you, about your journals, what’s the best way to do so? Don’t go to Kikki.K.

KRISTINA: Don’t go to Kikki.K. It’s funny. I now have to be making that very clear on all podcasts and all my talks because some people say, Oh, I’m just going to go even a friend to me texted me the other day. She just ordered a diary. I said, which one? And Kikki.K, I’m like, what? She obviously wasn’t a close friend, but anyway, so there are a few things.

So if people are interested in the coaching program, I think this is for anyone who really wants to work on themselves. So that’s a 12 month program. You can join anytime that’s at yourdreamlifestartshere. com. But if anyone has any specific questions about that just send us an email and we can explain it, but it’s all on that website for anyone who’s interested in, in Personal growth books and personal development books.

 We have a book club called grow where we read one book a month. I absolutely love that. I go live in both of these programs every Monday. So it’s a very much interactive. The coaching program, you can get a lot of support, but also the book club live every, every week. And then at the dream life store is where you can find journals. And the amazing things I think is that you can personalise them. So all the diaries, the journals, I’ve got a great book, journal called Plan Your Year for anyone who needs some support on that. But bullet journals, gratitude journals, goals journal, you name it, it’s all there. Actually for anyone who wants to focus on their wellness for 2024 we’ve got a beautiful wellness journal. I think that can help a lot of people.

CLARE: Beautiful. Well, I will link everything in the show notes for today’s episode. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast today, sharing your journey. It’s been an absolute joy. And I wish you every luck in creating your dream life.

KRISTINA: Thank you so much. Thanks for having me and thanks for inspiring people to, to work on their financial freedom. I think it’s so important to be able to live your dream life so you can, you Choose to do with your time. I think that’s most important when it comes to financial freedom. So thank you for spreading that word out in the world. And thank you so much for having me.

CLARE: Well, absolute pleasure. Thanks for coming on.

* Transcript created by AI – may contain errors or omissions from original podcast audio